


maybe i'm crazy to suppose

by temerity (forsanethaec)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, New Year's Eve, Twitter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 04:21:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsanethaec/pseuds/temerity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis is mad that Liam didn't tweet at him on his birthday. Liam makes it up to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	maybe i'm crazy to suppose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dicktectivearchive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dicktectivearchive/gifts).



> hope u like this shan because u made me do it. xoxo

“I remember a time, not so long ago, when my plan for being 21 involved a lot of dignity and, like, restraint and whatever,” Louis tells Zayn morosely. He takes a swig of his beer and sinks back in the couch. “Adult things, whatever adults do, I don’t know.” 

“So you start by begging your friends for birthday tweets.” Zayn’s mouth curls up. “Seems like that plan’s going well so far.” 

“It’s not my fault. I was coerced.”

“Were you?”

“Yeah, by the lot of you being birthday-forgetting assholes.” 

Zayn knocks his beer against Louis’ consolingly. 

“You’re just coping. I get it. You’re, like, ancient now.” 

“I hate you.” 

“Me and Haz did alright, anyway, after Niall got us going,” Zayn says into his beer. “Was just Liam.” Louis’ mouth ducks down without his permission, and of course Zayn notices. “Wait – Louis. _No_.” 

Louis takes a long enough drink to cover the space in which he’d otherwise have to talk or look at Zayn or think about his joke of a life. It’s been three days since his birthday and all he’s done is, by turns, wallow in half-hearted fuming at Liam and wallow over how adorable Liam’s whole “best for last” thing was and wallow in how every time he’d seen mistletoe on Christmas, he’d thought only, helplessly, of Liam. 

“That’s what you’re so hung up on?” There’s badly hidden hilarity in Zayn’s voice. “Liam missing it?”

“He meant well,” Louis says, just to say it.

“Oh my god.” Zayn’s mouth is trembling with repressed laughter. “You’re ridiculous.”

Louis sighs. “I know.” He has to smile then, because it _is_ ridiculous and he knows it. “I just – whatever.”

“So cute. You’re like a teenage girl.”

“There’s only one teenager in this room and it is not me, Malik.” 

“Right, so that’s why you’re the one sat on my couch drinking away the pain of your bandmate not tweeting at you on your birthday.” 

Louis toasts him, drains the bottle and gets up to find another one. 

“My advice?” Zayn says, following him into the kitchen. Louis pops the top on his new beer and leans back against the counter. “Milk it. I bet Liam’s already feeling guilty.”

“Oh, that’s evil,” Louis says, grinning in spite of himself. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to take advantage like that now I’m ancient, as you say.”

Zayn shrugs, smirking. Louis tips his beer against his lips and smirks back. 

 

The week between Christmas and New Year’s passes quick and cold and quiet. Zayn is the only person Louis really sees, and Liam texts him a few times, but Louis’ replies are cursory, gleefully monosyllabic. They skirt the tweet issue. Louis knows he’s being a dick, but it’s kind of hilarious to imagine Liam frantic with concern that Louis is cross with him. 

And actually, Liam is most likely not frantic with concern about anything, because this is reality, where things like that do not happen. The bottom line is Louis is an idiot smitten with another idiot. And anyway, he’s not cross to begin with. Not even a little fucking bit.

He’s watching football reruns three days before New Year’s Eve, talking to his mum on the phone, when he gets a buzz against his ear. He puts her on speaker and looks at the text. It’s from Liam.

_any big new years plans??_

He smiles and taps out a singular, 

_nope_

“Are you texting?” his mum asks wearily over the line. 

“No, mum.” His phone buzzes in his hand.

_cooool dont make any!!! ;)_

Louis rolls his eyes, even as something in his chest flips a little. “Mum, Liam is ridiculous,” he says, because he has to say it to someone.

“I know, love.” She sounds sympathetic, and he considers for about half a second asking for her input on… whatever this is, but decides against it. He doesn’t text Liam back. _Let him stew a little longer_ , he thinks, but somehow he manages not to make New Year’s plans all the same. 

 

He’s in on Monday night, the Times Square countdown show playing on the TV in the background of his drinking alone. Taylor is headlining, and he wonders detachedly if Harry is there. 

“ _I_ could be there,” he mutters. He’s taken to talking to himself in times of duress such as these. “Fucking Liam.” 

The doorbell rings. Louis freezes. 

“Oh, no,” he says aloud. There’s a sizable part of his lunatic brain, the part that’s responsible for the fact that he’s watching Ryan Seacrest and drinking whiskey by himself on New Year’s Eve at the end of basically the biggest-deal year of his life, that had entertained this scenario: Liam showing up on his doorstep with some kind of adorable, unwarranted apology that would make Louis feel a little bad and a lot triumphant and then maybe they’d make out or something, whatever, Louis can’t predict the fucking future. 

He opens the door.

“Hi,” Liam says, precisely as sheepishly as in Louis’ overactive imagination. He’s wearing a jacket, the top button of his shirt undone, no tie. There’s a bottle of champagne in his hand. 

“Going out?” Louis asks, smiling coolly and leaning in the doorframe. He’s playing this game as long as he possible can. 

“Thought I’d stay in, actually,” Liam says, smiling and pushing past Louis into the house. 

“Come on in,” Louis says, a repressed smile audible in his voice as he shuts the door and follows Liam to the kitchen.

The champagne goes on the bar next to Louis’ mostly empty tumbler of whiskey, and they stand on either side facing each other. Liam shucks his jacket and hangs it on the back of a stool. Louis watches the tug of his throat as his arms stretch, frowning. 

“How was your holiday?” Liam asks quietly. Louis pretends that tone isn’t a knife to the fucking heart, and shrugs loftily. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says. “Quiet.” 

“How come you’ve not gone out tonight?” 

Louis blinks at him. “You asked me not to,” he says. He was going for bitchy, but ends up with something far closer to honest and heart-sick and open, and he sees how Liam hears it in the softening lines of his face. 

“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Liam says deliberately, meeting Louis’ eye. “Er, with champagne.” 

“I’ll get some glasses.” Louis turns away, trying and mostly failing to work his voice back up into the chilly passive aggression he’s been going for over the past several days. “Sorry for what?”

Liam laughs. “Quit messing with me.” He rolls his sleeves up his forearms. 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Louis says, smiling blandly and setting two glasses on the bar between them. 

Liam unwraps the foil from the cork and tips the bottle toward Louis, raising a questioning eyebrow.

“Go right ahead,” Louis says, leaning back against the counter to watch Liam’s body curl around the bottle as he pushes at the cork, the muscles of his forearms straining only a little. 

The cork bursts out into Liam’s hand with a satisfyingly loud pop. Liam tosses it to Louis, who catches it with trained reflex. They know each other well enough. 

“Happy birthday,” Liam says, smiling. “Least I could do.”

Louis turns the cork over in his hand and tries not to let it feel significant as he pockets it. “And a happy new year,” he sings softly.

Liam rounds the bar to Louis’ side to pour the champagne. 

“I am sorry, though,” he says. “I didn’t mean to miss your birthday. I tried, I did.”

“I know.”

“I know you’ve been mad at me.” And then he looks up at Louis with his patented puppy dog face and Louis has to roll his eyes. 

“God, look at you,” he says, a tiny bit desperately. “Look at your _face_.” 

Liam still has that hopeful, deferential little smile on his lips, which Louis can’t stop looking at, eyes flicking up and down. He picks up a glass of champagne. 

“Cheers to forgetting my birthday,” he says.

“Many happy returns.” Liam laughs. They clink glasses, and Louis all but drains his, feeling the color in his face. Liam is standing rather close to him, and he’s suddenly forgotten how to pretend to be mad, or if he was even pretending in the first place. He sets his glass down on the counter, and Liam sets his on the bar. 

Then Liam steps into his space, their feet nearly touching. He puts a careful hand on Louis’ waist, a tiny bit nervous, and Louis goes still all the way down to his bones.

“Can I make it up to you, though?”

Louis only realizes he’s holding his breath when he tries to speak and nearly chokes.

“You’re so stupid,” he manages, barely above a whisper. Liam’s chest is nearly flush with his, his feet half between Louis’ feet, their hips touching when one of them shifts an inch. 

“I could wait ‘til midnight if you’d rather,” Liam murmurs, his voice low as he leans in. Louis wonders if he rehearsed this, and the thought makes something beat its wings in his chest.

“That’s alright,” he breathes, going nearly cross-eyed trying to keep Liam in view, and then Liam’s lips are on his. 

Liam’s mouth is cold and sweet with champagne and he’s got one hand at Louis’ back, the other coming up to his cheek, and Louis wonders distantly as he kisses back, helplessly, arms looping around Liam’s shoulders, what universe he’s fallen into in which all his absurd fantasies play out line for line. He’s keening into Liam, nose in his cheek, pressed against the counter by Liam’s body with no space in between. 

Liam’s laughing when they break apart. “You don’t seem surprised,” he says. “Been hoping this would happen?”

“No,” Louis says, too defensively, staring at Liam’s mouth because he’s allowed now, it’s his, and he wants to be kissing it again right this instant. 

“I have,” Liam says, voice dropping boldly.

“Did you practice that whole thing?” Louis asks, trying and failing to make it sound like a joke.

“A little,” Liam says.

“That’s – weird and neurotic,” Louis tells him. “Totally not hot at all. Will you kiss me again?”

Liam laughs. “Yes,” he says, and he does, and it’s amazing. Louis actually feels dizzy. Liam licks into his mouth and his hand is snaking up the back of Louis’ shirt, their hips and chests flush together and all this heat and that deep, woolly cold-weather smell of Liam everywhere at once. 

Louis thinks then that one of the things he loves most about him is how the dopey, vanilla façade of the person who turns up on New Year’s Eve with apology champagne for a Twitter mishap is actually hiding the person who turns that visit into make-up sex against the kitchen counter. 

He breaks away with a wet noise. Liam’s cheeks are flushed, his mouth bitten-red, and he ducks in to kiss Louis’ throat, licking at the dip of his collarbone in the wide neck of his shirt. Louis gives a rough gasp, tipping his head to give him access.

“I wasn’t really mad at you, you know,” he manages weakly. 

“Yes you were,” Liam says into his skin. 

“I was having you on.”

“No you weren’t.” Big hands are rucking up his shirt now, hot on his sides. 

“Shut up, I’ll decide that,” Louis says. “Can’t we retire this to the living room or something?”

Liam laughs. “Okay,” he says. He doesn’t move, though, so Louis has to push into him to escape.

“Bring the champagne,” he says.

Taylor is singing on the TV when they get there. It’s nearing midnight. 

“Wonder if Harry’s there,” Liam says. 

“Don’t care,” Louis says, clicking the remote haphazardly until the TV turns off. “I’ve got my perfect New Year’s right here.” He smiles cartoonishly until Liam bursts out laughing. 

“You’re ridiculous.” 

“You are,” Louis says. He pulls Liam in at the hips and pushes him down on the couch, straddling him nimbly. The champagne is still clutched in Liam’s fingers, and Louis pries it away from him and takes a swig from the bottle.

Liam is staring up at him with his mouth a little open. 

“Not here for your viewing pleasure,” Louis says without bite.

“Aren’t you?”

“Shut it.” Louis grins as he sets the champagne on the floor and unbuttons Liam’s shirt. He spreads his hands over his chest for a moment, skin hot under his fingers still cold from the champagne. 

Liam undoes his flies and Louis’ as Louis continues to be distracted by Liam’s skin, and suddenly there’s a hand on his dick. Louis bucks a little, more with surprise than anything, and presses his mouth into Liam’s neck to suppress a sudden bout of giggling. It turns quickly to breathlessness as Liam twists his wrist experimentally, not inexpert so much as cautious. 

“Go on already,” Louis says, aware that he’s rarely looked more wanton, splayed across Liam’s lap and feeling about half his size. He pulls his own shirt off, just to up the ante, and sucks a kiss in beneath Liam’s ear. 

Liam shifts beneath him, fumbling for a moment, and then he’s thumbed his own cock against Louis’ and that, that’s something, velvet-hot and stiff and Liam’s lips wet against Louis’ ear, his uneven breaths, how unsure he is.

“Like that, Li,” Louis breathes, rolling his hips forward to get him going again. Liam’s hand moves, fingers squeezing, and he groans and tips his forehead into Louis’ neck, his free hand sliding fingers into Louis’ hair and tugging a little. Louis gives a little whine and pushes up into Liam’s hand, wanting more of that hot slide, wanting to feel Liam’s hips buck beneath him. 

“Should be mad at you all the time,” Louis gasps out, “if this is what it gets me.” 

“Oh god,” Liam says on a laugh, his breath on Louis’ neck. He scrapes his teeth over the skin there until Louis squirms in his lap. “You had me frantic,” he says, “ask any of the boys, I was texting them all week trying to work out how to make it up to you.”

Louis thinks of Zayn and narrows his eyes.

“I’m starting to think we were set up,” 

Liam laughs. “Best for last,” he says, bright and cheery and flushed, and Louis just looks at him, biting his lip around a helpless smile and knowing, with certainty, that he’s never seen someone so wonderful in his whole life. 

Liam kisses him again, rubs his thumb over the head of Louis’ cock, pulls him in with a hand at his arse. His bare chest against Louis’ feels amazing, and all at once Louis feels like he’s close, feels drunk more on Liam than on the champagne or the whiskey, feels like they’re probably going to ruin the couch and/or their trousers and feels most of all that he doesn’t care. He bites at Liam’s lower lip, feeling it full and kissed-swollen in his mouth, and runs his hand over Liam’s short hair, wishing there was something to sink his fingers into as Liam twists his hand again, setting a brisk, uneven pace. He settles for dragging his blunt nails down Liam’s shoulderblade, fingers pressing into the muscle. His head is spinning. He cannot believe this is happening. 

“Close, Lou,” Liam mumbles into his mouth, the words half a kiss, messy and open. Louis tongues at the corner of his lips in answer, pressing his hips forward and up in a haphazard rhythm, breath coming in little gasps. There’s color in the dip of Liam’s throat and Louis bends his head to lick at it. 

Liam switches hands, panting a little, and maybe it’s the change in angle or the little noise it pulls from Liam’s lips, but Louis is gasping out, suddenly, “Oh, god, Li,” hips jerking forward, his hands tight at Liam’s shoulders, and he comes, sluggish and messy, onto Liam’s hand and his cock. 

“Lou,” Liam gasps, and Louis shifts back slightly and watches, body heavy and full of heat, as Liam jerks himself off fast and rough, his cock sticky with Louis’ come. It’s quite a sight. He has a feeling he’ll be revisiting it, and, too, the way Liam’s stomach goes concave and he draws Louis against him with a hand at his neck and a little whimper as he comes between them, the way that his breathing hits a pitch and then slows, how his body trembles and stills, how he doesn’t stop holding onto Louis, lips against his shoulder, the whole time. 

Louis looks up over Liam’s shoulder after a moment at the clock on the stereo behind them.

“Oh my god,” he mumbles. “We missed midnight.” 

Liam laughs. “I think it’s okay,” he says, tipping his head back against the couch. Louis looks at his neck, all mottled red, and smirks in satisfaction. “Seems like a good start to 2013.”

“It does.” Louis settles off him, sprawled half-naked and a total mess in the corner of the couch. He puts his feet across Liam’s thighs, and Liam laughs again. He leans over and kisses Louis solidly on the lips. 

“I’ll never forget another birthday,” he says, “or New Year’s. Or Easter. Or anything,” and he drops another kiss onto Louis’ lips, “so long as I’ve got you.”

Louis bites his lip, looking up at him. There’s a lot of things he could say, sappy and snarky and otherwise, and he’s not sure which to choose. 

“Apology accepted,” he says finally, laughing a little at himself and the way Liam’s laughing too and just for the joy of it, and pulls him in for another kiss.


End file.
